10/18 Hannah Glory AMPS 306

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Priscillalea

Member Since 2011
Good Morning, Just joining your group, I have been under "Alpha Trak" until now............everyone there was and is very helpful......Have a 13 year old little lady named Hannah Glory, she has been on Lantus for about 4 yrs. with 2 remissions and one very bad hypo incident a year ago where she dropped tp 36, had a seizure and went blind, she is all recovered now. We had a near miss two nights ago 79 and 68, took her to emergency vet overnight.She had been on 4 units for 2 months and continued to run high, 300's mostly.Changed food to EVO and high protein wet....started having times where BG's were nice once in a while.........Anyway without going on for pages and pages, she is now down to 2 units and I am trying to do a curve today................The more info I have gotten the more confused I have gotten, but I just wanted to get on here so I can ask questions if need be, There is a spreadsheet that someone set up for me, do you have access to it?.................I wish there was a sliding scale like humans have you know if it is 200-300 then give 2 units, for example......................I have alot of kitties and work full time I do her glucose almost every morning and have to decide what to give right then and then I worry all day about her.............anyway I will be in touch.thanks...Priscilla and Hannah Glory...........
 
Re: Lantus

Welcome to Lantus Land Priscilla and Hannah Glory!

Are you going to continue to use the Alphatrak or changing to a human meter? The numbers read differently so we'll still need to be aware if you are. Not that it matters, we just need to know.

We're too new to help with any dosing for Lantus but there are lots of experts around so I'll just say Welcome. Glad you already have a spreadsheet set up for you, I'm sure someone will post the info for you...
 
Re: Lantus

Hello

I am new here so I can`t help you but welcome. Yes I find all this confusing also. I too wish there was sliding scale like there is for humans it sure would make it a whole lot easier. You will find the help here you need and good luck.

Terri
 
Re: Lantus

The link to your spreadsheet works just fine.

Lantus does not have a sliding scale. If you want an insulin where that's possible, you may want to consider Prozinc. The dosing protocol that we use is in the sticky above (Tight Regulation Protocol). If you read the protocol carefully, you'll note that the goal is to get a cat into normal numbers (50 - 120) as quickly as possible. Likewise, if you look at the subject lines on the Board or open our spreadsheets, you'll see that we do shoot low numbers (once there is sufficient data to do so) and many cats here routinely are in numbers that were causing you to panic. I completely understand your apprehension if you've been through a symptomatic hypo with Lilly. However, we do encourage you to get sufficient tests in to know that your cat is safe and we have an exceptional track record of teaching people how to manage the curve with food to prevent a hypoglycemic crisis.

Please take a look at the starred sticky notes. They will help to familiarize you with this board and our approach to using Lantus. And, please, do ask questions. The people here are very generous with their time and knowledge.
 
Re: Lantus

Thank you for the welcome everyone, I have been on here for almost a week and I started by wondering if there was somewhere to purchase Alpha trak strips without selling your first born child, so since he refused to be sold, he's 47, I guess I am going to have to check on a human glucometer, someone recommended a Relion from Walmart. When that happens I will let you all know as for now it is the Alpha Trak. I have been doing somewhat of a curve today and have put results on my spreadsheet...........2nd day on 2Units, was 4 until Friday night.............talk at you all later.Priscilla
 
Re: Lantus

Priscillalea said:
..... wondering if there was somewhere to purchase Alpha trak strips without selling your first born child, so since he refused to be sold, he's 47, I guess I am going to have to check on a human glucometer, someone recommended a Relion from Walmart....
Click to expand...

Online will be your best bet for Alpha Trak supplies - Amazon, E-Bay, and American Diabetes Warehouse are 3 places that may have supplies for a reasonable cost.

The WalMart ReliOn Confirm and ReliOn Confirm Micro are pretty reasonable. The Confirm is actually a branded version of Arkray USA's Glucocard 01, which is available through American Diabetes Warehouse too. ADW has discounts and/or free shipping when you buy in bulk and from time to time there are coupon codes for items.
 
Re: Lantus

Actually, the best price for Alpha Trak strips that i found was at my Vets, 48 dollars a can.it seemed that every other place was more expensive.I' use up what I have and then try to switch.............I have a totally unrelated question, when I was on the Alpha Trak forum {is that what it is called?} the messages showed up in my e-mail, on this Lantus discussion I have to come looking for them, why is that?............Also I have a spreadsheet, called Hannah's, do you all have access to that? This computer stuff is not my thing so just tell me what to do and I will try.I liked it when it came to my e-mail, how do I make that happen again??>
 
Re: Lantus

I can see Hannah's spreadsheet fine.

The User Control Panel, up near the top left of the page, has a several tabs you may select.
Board Preferences tab.
Go to that and select the options you want.
You can be notified if someone PMs you.

At the bottom of a post, when you are creating it, there is a check box for "Notify me when a reply is posted" That may get you an email notification; I do not know if it will get the post e-mailed to you.
 
Re: Lantus

Okay, here is my question..........My Insulin times are 6-7 AM and 6-7 PM.because of the emergency trip to the Vet on Friday evening, her AM SAT. dose was at 1015 AM..I gave her PM dose at 930 pm last night.this Am was 0900, by Wed Am I have to be back to my schedule, I have not yet given it to her and it is 730 PM here in Fl. what time do I give it tonight and looking at my spreadsheet what dose, it is supposed to be 2U but I see that she is dropping a little, although I am about to feed everyone their wet food, so she will go up..suggestions.............Please.Priscilla
 
Re: Lantus

Set up your condo (daily post) like this:

10/16 Hanna AMBG ###, +3 ###; PMBG ###. that way your spreadsheet need not be opened everytime someone is looking for a number. I would not shoot any earlier than 9:00 tonight. You should only take 2 15 minutes or 1 half/hour in day to get back on schedule. Post your PMPS and someone will be around. I don't see any problem with the 2u you are shooting at this time but lets see what the PMPS is OKAY?
 
Re: Lantus

Remember that the cat's normal numbers mentioned (50 to 120) are really 80 to 150 for you and the Alpha Trak. Most of the numbers mentioned here are geared for human meters-- don't forget to reconfigure but you may already know that. (ps the strips for some of the human meters are so much cheaper)

Best wishes.
 
Re: Lantus

hi priscilla - just wanted to welcome you and Hannah to lantus land!

i think it would be helpful for you to understand how lantus works. that will help you understand the reason there isn't a sliding scale.

when you inject the lantus it forms a precipitate under the skin. that's the "shed" or "depot" that we talk about. the size of the shed directly corresponds to the size of the dose. after the shed forms, it slowly dissolves and releases back into the body. this slow release is what keeps the BG more constant and is the reason we call Lantus more gentle. Actually yours is the first time i've heard of a cat in the 30's having a seizure (or was that on the alpha track?) - mostly cats can tolerate going into the 30's and we can pull them up quickly with some high carb food or karo syrup.

anyway, every time you change the size of the injection the shed has to adjust to catch up. if you increase the dose, it can take 3 days for the shed to catch up and then you really see what the dose does. if you decrease the dose, the shed is larger from its previous dose and it can take a while for the shed to decrease, then you see what the new lower dose does to the BG.

That's why we don't change the dose at every shot. usually we hold a dose for 3 days unless the cat's BG drops less than 50 on a human glucometer. The BG tests that tell us when to change the dose are the lowest tests of each cycle, the nadir. We test midcycle to try to catch that lowest number so we know if the dose is good. we test before each shot (amps = morning preshot BG and pmps = evening preshot BG) so that we know it's safe to shoot the dose, but the preshot tests don't determine the size of the dose, not usually.

Does that all make sense?

It will take you a while to learn all the little things here, but we're all happy to help you. it's important for you to test before every shot (so you know it's safe to shoot) and to test midcycle (so you know she doesn't go hypoglycemic and you know how the dose is working) every day. So really, we want people to test a minimum of 4 times a day. As you test and record the numbers in the spreadsheet, how Hannah Glory's body responds to the Lantus will become obvious and her patterns will tell us a lot about what she needs.

Keep at it, read the starred posts at the top of this section of the Lantus forum and ask all of your questions. we've all found it confusing at the beginning but you will learn it too.

Glad to meet you! You're in the right place to help your sweet little Hannah Glory now.
 
Re: Lantus

BJM said:
Priscillalea said:
..... wondering if there was somewhere to purchase Alpha trak strips without selling your first born child, so since he refused to be sold, he's 47, I guess I am going to have to check on a human glucometer, someone recommended a Relion from Walmart....
Click to expand...

The WalMart ReliOn Confirm and ReliOn Confirm Micro are pretty reasonable. The Confirm is actually a branded version of Arkray USA's Glucocard 01, which is available through American Diabetes Warehouse too. ADW has discounts and/or free shipping when you buy in bulk and from time to time there are coupon codes for items.
Click to expand...

Hi Piscilla and Hannah Glory!

Just a quick welcome from us. You've gotten lots of great info so far. To add my 2 cents, I recently switched from the One Touch Ultra Mini to the Relion confirm for the same reason...the price of strips was killing me! I'm very happy with the Relion, and have been buying the Arkray strips through American Diabetic Wholesale. The OT strips were almost $1.00 a piece, whereas if you buy the Arkray strips in bulk from ADW, they are about 27 cents each....soooo much better!

Again, Welcome...I hope we see more of you!

Amy
 
10/17 Hannah Glory AMPS 340

Good Morning Everyone.............Wow, I have gone from someone almost never on the computer to all day long..........okay, lets see if I can use the right lingo here.Hannah Glory.10/16 845pm PMPS 272 2U...............+5 295..............10/17 AMPS 340...Insulin 2 U at about 0845..................Will check on different meter today..........Thanks for all the explaining about Lantus from everyone.....I may actually be getting it............When I go back to work on Wed. I will not be able to always do BG 4 xs a day, will not be here.but will always do BGs before Insulin..poor little kitty, she hates to see me coming but is so good about it.............Blessings..........Priscilla
 
Re: Lantus

Someone mentioned about Hannah having such a severe reaction in the 30's......And that was 12 hours after her AM shot of 5 units, I was out of town and a nurse friend was taking care of her. My Vet says it was an extrememly odd thing especially 12 hours after her shot, I have questions about it myself. She had just been raised to 5 units the week before, very strange, so as you can imagine both my Vet and I are paranoid about her getting too low, that is why I panicked Fri. evening at 79 and 68....................Priscilla
 
Re: Lantus

Morning, Priscilla, and welcome to the board. :)

You may want to begin each day with a new condo with the subject title reading "date, name of cat and AMPS # or PMPS #". This will be extremely helpful for those that are helping you to find you quicker.

There are plenty of people on here that'll help you with your kitty in getting him/her regulated.

Looking forward to seeing how your kitty is doing. :)
 
10/17 hannah Glory AMPS 340

Well I tried to change subject, hope it shows up. any way just did +4 and she is still 340...........Really ???? Priscilla and Hannah Glory
 
Re: Lantus

to change the subject line you have to go to the first post and click "edit" on it. if you change the subject on a later post, like the one you just did, it only changes that particular one. the one that everyone sees is from the first post of the day.

you've hit the jackpot as far as knowledge about Lantus and how it works in diabetic cats. We'll teach you and you'll find the information and experience here far exceeds what your vet will know about lantus and cats. most vets have little experience with it, but they often know that it has a good record for cats recovering and going off of insulin. they usually don't seem to know how it really works, however, or the ways in which it should be handled differently than other insulins that they have more experience in.

a couple of those - one is the importance of that mid-cycle shot. if you are gone during the day and can't get a mid-cycle, you have to make sure you get one in the evening cycle. so for example, if you work from 8-5 and give shots at 7am/pm, you might need to move your shots to 6/6 and then get a just before bed at 11pm - that would give you a +5 every day, which is pretty good.

another HUGE difference is that lantus is adjusted by .25 units - that's a quarter of a unit. if your dose is over 3 units, and the lowpoint (nadir) is still over 200's, you might adjust by .50 units. but we don't adjust by a whole unit unless you're on a big dose. my cat has a special condition called acromegaly and his dose is 13.5units right now - i still don't usually adjust by a whole unit. the fact that the vet had you adjusting by an entire unit would suggest to me that he is thinking of how other insulins work. so i'd encourage you to switch your thinking and from now on, you're going to adjust by .25 units. that's a tiny amount but if you look at some of the other cat's spreadsheets, you'll see that .25 can make a big difference in BG numbers.

Have you read the starred stickies? Your insulin is expensive and you want to take care of it - there's good information on how to keep it effective for as long as possible on here and this is an excellent overall bit of instruction on the whole thing here.

This is the protocol we follow to keep our cats as healthy as possible. not all go off of insulin, but following this gives your cat the best possible chance of being healthy with the diabetes. Tight Regulation Protocol

Even with everything in writing, it still takes a lot of personal help to understand how it all works. so don't hesitate to ask as many questions as you have. we've all been in your shoes.
 
Re: 10/17 Hannah Glory AMPS 340 +4 340

Well, just did a +6 and it is 409, no snacks...........only the 3rd day on 2 units.............but she was on 4 for 2 months and until the other night she tolerated it pretty well.............The Vet and I were only raising it .5 whenever we raised it.and he would always say wait 3-5 days to check it...........I am very blessed, I have access to free Lantus, I keep it all in the refrigerator, no shaking, no rolling, no air into vial..........6A and 6P would be pretty perfect for me, in fact I have to try to get back there by Wed. AM when I go back to work.Priscilla
 
Re: 10/17 Hannah Glory AMPS 340 +4 340

Depending on what the initial Lantus dose was and how quickly it was increased, and by how much each time ... it is possible Hannah may be on too high a dose. You'll see high numbers throughout the 12 hours for several 12 hour periods, then all of a sudden, the glucose drops a lot.

Sienne can advise you more on that - she's reviewed a lot of spreadsheets over a number of years.

Also, there is a "bounce" phenomenon - when you have a much lower glucose level than usual (like Oct 13th & 14th), the next 2 to 3 12 hour cycles may have unusually high numbers. This is because the liver attempts to compensate for the low glucose by putting out hormones, plus glucose forming compounds. You just have to hang tough, wait it out, keep testing, and also test for ketones. Either pick up some ketodiastix for urine testing, or possibly get a meter that can test for blood ketones (note: ketone blood test strips are pricey!), so you can make sure she stays healthy.
 
Re: 10/17 Hannah Glory AMPS 340 +4 340

Did you observe any reason why the glucose might have dropped?
Vomiting?
Inappetance?
 
Re: 10/17 Hannah Glory AMPS 340 +4 340

Pricilla,
You do realize that your spreadsheet is in your signature don't you? I saw question twice above and wanted to be sure. You'll have to sign into your google account to enter anything into it. If so, just forget I said it......... ;-)

It's going to take a little bit to get Hannah's numbers back down. Everyone tells me to put on my patience pants... :?
 
Re: 10/17 Hannah Glory AMPS 340 +4 340

At +10 she is now 331, I am about to give her dinner so that will no doubt raise it a little.No, I saw no reason for her to drop on Friday, except she seems to be very food sensitive..........I only have EVO dry available once in a while, and it seems if she only takes a couple of bites it makes her go up. so I am trying to cut out everyone's dry food slowly,although , I have one cat who acts like she is going to die before my very eyes if I do not give her dry food, a real drama queen..........anyway I plan to stop it completely gradually.........So now Hannah is going to get her low carb wet food and at about 715-730pm she will get 2Units, then I will test her once more before I go to bed and during the night sometime when I wake up since I no longer sleep.I really hope that is okay, not sure if I will get back on here tonight..Priscilla
PS, I think you saw that message twice because I believe I hit submit twice..........
 
Re: 10/17 Hannah Glory AMPS 340 +4 340

Thank you Lisa, I am really new to this plus I have dial-up, yes I am one of the 2 people on the planet who still have dial-up. I must change that ,it takes forever for me to do all of this, DoLou is a cutey..Blessings, Priscilla
 
Re: 10/17 Hannah Glory AMPS 340 +4 340

I have tried 4 times in the last 30 minutes to get to Hannah's spreadsheet and I can only see part of it so I am signing off before I throw the computer through the window................so at +10 she was 331.I will try again tomorrow and put them all in Good night.................Priscilla and Hannah Glory
 
Re: 10/17 Hannah Glory AMPS 340 +4 340

Priscilla,
Right below the spreadsheet itself is a little slide bar - grab it with mouse and move to the right until you do see it.....does that work?

Hugs - don't worry, we all have spreadsheet issues at various times.
 
Squeaky and KT. good Morning, no that did not work however, things were a little faster this morning.....I guess I must break down and get rid of dial-up, ya think?.............Now this am I put in new AMPS, but it is attached to old message, there must be a different way, right? I did add all to spread sheet , it is up to date but could not put in the numbers for the far right side.........+11 is also 306.Anyway off to buy cat food......Priscilla and Hannah Glory
 
Good morning, Priscilla!

You're getting the hang of all this! But yes, you want to start a brand new condo (thread) thread each day by clicking "New Topic". There, you will put the current day's info in the subject line, and include a link to the previous condo inside the body of text.

Good luck with the cat food shopping!!

Amy
 
Hi guys .. We haven't stopped into your condo before so welcome from us! Glad to hear you are getting all your questions answered .. you'll always find the help you need on here, it's such an amazing place to be with our sugar babies!
 
Re: 10/19 Hannah Glory AMPS 295

What is OJT ? I see it everywhere.........Will try to start a new "condo" for today, still not sure........
 
10/19 Hannah Glory AMPS 295

Trying to get today's subject to change on condo list, not having much luck, did it yesterday.o well
 
Welcome to lantus land, and I am surprised you never found us before this..Managing a long term cat is difficult, but with patience & consistancy it can be done--I am here with Moonie since 2/08, & she is doing very well...I only adjust her dose according to our protocols..and would shave her dose rather than lower by 0.25U, when she needs..I'm talking by drops..It does make a difference in her numbers.
Being consistant with the dose, & gathering data for curves will help you see where Hannah Glory is going during the day...
JUst wanted to add that the use of an auto feeder when we are out, is so helpful & can prevent them from going too low, even if you need to isolate her for a short time..
Please try to come here with your concerns so we can help you..
I see how hard you are trying with your dear kitty, they are so special!
Keep posting, ask questions, & welcome to lantus! :mrgreen:
 
Re: 10/19 Hannah Glory AMPS 295

Priscillalea said:
What is OJT ? I see it everywhere.........Will try to start a new "condo" for today, still not sure........
Click to expand...

"OTJ" means "off the juice" - in food-controlled diabetic remission and no longer requiring insulin.

To start a new condo, click on the "New Topic" button that's just under the "Lantus (glargine)" heading, right above the forum itself.

Have a great day!
 
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